


A Single Button

by ActuallyRandomPerson



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Drabble, Ficlet, Flash Fic, Fluff, Short, Snippets, Vignette, basically i'm gay, i guess, living his truth, not technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 19:56:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19302745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActuallyRandomPerson/pseuds/ActuallyRandomPerson
Summary: It’s amazing how something as small as the click of a single button can change someone’s world in an instant.Aka I have a lot of feelings about basically I’m gay and accidentally wrote this.





	A Single Button

It’s amazing how something as small as the click of a single button can change someone’s world in an instant.

 

Dan Howell was well aware of this strange phenomenon, having experienced it many times in his life. Having _caused_ it more times than anyone could reasonably count.

 

He often finds himself wondering how different his life would be now, if he hadn’t pressed the long series of buttons that had led him to this exact stage. Hadn’t clicked to subscribe to Phil all those years ago. Hadn’t typed out the endless barrage messages asking for editing tips. Hadn’t hit record on his webcam. Hadn't uploaded that very first video, as cringy and awkward as it seems now.

 

Would he even still be alive? Phil had saved him, when he was in that dark place, seen him and found something worthwhile, something beautiful. Would he have found his way out without that blinding beacon of light? Would someone else have come along and managed to make themselves see what Phil had?

 

He also thinks about all the lives he’s impacted. The thousands of comments he's read about how clicking on his videos had gotten so many of his followers out of that same dark place. Watched as communities formed within his fanbase, brought together by a shared love of his videos, creating a safe space for others to live their own truths. How many more lives he could help, _save_ , with just one more click of a button.

 

He senses Phil come up beside him while he is contemplating this, knowing without even having to look that the other man was smiling reassuringly at him as a gentle hand came to lie on his shoulder. The familiar weight grounded him, and he took a deep breath in as he moved to hover the cursor over the button that would affect how he lived the rest of his life. The button that he couldn't, _wouldn't_  take back.

 

He hits upload, and finally starts living his truth.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short thing I initially wrote while exhausted and emotional about Basically, I'm Gay, then edited to make it flow and shit. If you saw any tense slip-ups, please let me know! I wrote this kinda in a different tense originally (by that, I mean the original draft was filled with typos and tense changes and grammar issues, and I might not have caught them all. Please help me pretend to be a competent writer).  
> I am so incredibly proud of Dan and the courage it must have taken to post that video, and also of the trust Phil placed in him with even just the implication Dan made in his video. I love them both _so much_ , and both them and the community helped me out so much when I was in a fragile stage a few years ago (shameless self-promo- on this ao3 account I also have a positive! rant about why Dan coming out meant so much to me, and I elaborate a little more on how watching their vids helped me. Not completely, as so much shits happened in the past few years that it would take a novel to explain it all, but some of it.)  
> I hope you all enjoyed this, and continue on in your lives feeling proud to be here, queer, and filled with existential fear. (Or, at least, _one_ of those things. It's cool if you don't fit all three labels 💜)


End file.
